It only makes sense Vinny Del Negro claimed satisfaction with his roster after the trade deadline came and went Thursday and the Clippers stayed pat.

Del Negro has a locker room to protect, so of course he professed devotion to the 14 players that started the day as Clippers, remained so through an uneventful morning and reported back to work at Staples Center to play the San Antonio Spurs.

For better or worse, this is the group Del Negro will push and prod over the final 26 games and into the postseason.

On Thursday it was mostly the latter as the Spurs took the Clippers apart in the same methodical manner they used to sweep them out of the second round of the playoffs last year.

It was a discouraging development for a Clippers team eager to show they're healthier and better than the one San Antonio rolled in four games last year, only to look even less capable now compared to last May.

On the other hand the Spurs have been almost unbeatable for more than a month while winning 16 of 17 games, so it might be a case of catching the wrong team on the wrong night.

And if the Spurs keep this up, it's hard to imagine anyone from the Western Conference denying them another berth into the NBA Finals.

Would some tinkering to the Clippers roster make a difference?

Perhaps.

But while it was fun to dream about a big deal getting done, it just wasn't realistic.

Sure, the past two weeks provided plenty of tantalizing possibilities - with Boston's Kevin Garnett reportedly a target and Utah's Paul Millsap apparently available - but nothing came to fruition.

And if you find that shocking, well, it's probably better we don't get into the Easter Bunny or professional wrestling.

Del Negro insists most of the talk was just a concoction of someone's overzealous imagination, and considering nothing significant happened league-wide despite a lot of talk across social media trying to rile everybody up, he's probably telling the truth.

It's funny how we have scoreboards and standings to hold everyone accountable in sports, but when it comes to Twitter trade rumors and speculation never materializing, we just pretend like they never happened.

Truth is Garnett was never waiving his trade clause to come to the Clippers, and with the way the intricate salary-cap rules are structured, the likelihood of Boston and the Clippers actually striking a plausible deal was always farfetched.

"There's things out there you can't even do," Del Negro said.

As far as calming the nerves of Eric Bledsoe, a highly regarded young point guard who provides a valuable insurance policy behind the fragile Chris Paul, Del Negro never felt the need.

Mostly because Del Negro didn't feel the Clippers were ever close enough on a deal for Bledsoe to be concerned.

"There weren't any deals out there," Del Negro insists.

Maybe he's being completely honest, maybe not.

It doesn't matter at this point anyway.

The roster is set, and we're about to find out how good it really is.

Seems only fitting the Clippers would play their first game after the All-Star break and post-trade deadline against the Spurs, who are rolling along as usual with the best record in the NBA and 4 games ahead of the Clippers in the Western Conference.

The same Spurs who swept the Clippers out of the second round of the playoffs in 2012 look just as good this season, somehow, someway defying age to roll out a soon-to-be 37-year-old Tim Duncan having his best season in seven years.

Manu Ginobili is healthy, Tony Parker is having another great year and Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is working his usual magic creating comfort zones and roles for players most fans couldn't put a name to a face.

Put it all together and you've got a team that hasn't lost at home since last November and has the best record in the NBA.

That appeared to be too much for the Clippers to handle Thursday, and without any reinforcements coming it remains to be seen if that changes anytime soon.